Recent years have seen a rapid proliferation in modeling and printing three-dimensional objects. Indeed, it is now common for individuals and businesses to create a three-dimensional model of an object utilizing a computing device and then produce a real-world copy of the object utilizing a three-dimensional printer. For example, utilizing conventional three-dimensional printing systems, businesses can now design and print a wide variety of objects, including nanostructures, minute machining parts, medical implants, homes, or even bridges.
Although conventional three-dimensional modeling systems allow users to design and print a wide array of objects, such systems have a variety of problems. For example, in many instances, digital modeling systems generate three-dimensional models that contain defects, errors, or other issues and, therefore, cannot be printed. For instance, a digital three-dimensional model may have minute holes or gaps at vertices or corresponding edges that make the model unsuitable for printing. Similarly, many three-dimensional models frequently contain flipped, duplicate, or overlapping modeling elements.
Users often express frustration with the process of identifying and correcting defects in a digital three-dimensional model (e.g., prior to printing the model to a three-dimensional object). Indeed, it is extremely difficult for users to isolate and correct such defects in order to generate accurate and/or functional printed objects. Some conventional three-dimensional printing systems seek to remedy such concerns by providing an error identification tool to locate and correct defects in three-dimensional models. However, conventional error identification tools also have their own shortcomings. For example, conventional error identification tools present a preview of a three-dimensional model with individual defects marked by a visual indicator. Such conventional tools require the user to manipulate and inspect the three-dimensional model to identify and correct any affected regions. Users often experience frustration with the cumbersome and time consuming process of manipulating a three-dimensional model at various angles and at various zoom levels to identify portions of the model with defects. This frustration is only compounded in three-dimensional models with hollow or otherwise occluded areas, where defects may be inward facing and difficult to identify through user manipulation of the three-dimensional model.
In addition, conventional digital modeling systems often result in a significant number of defects located in small regions of a three-dimensional model. Because a number of defects are often grouped together in a small space, users often have difficulty identifying and differentiating between various defects using conventional three-dimensional modeling systems. Indeed, because conventional three-dimensional modeling systems commonly identify errors with the same visual indicator, users often express frustration in being able to differentiate between errors occurring within a small region within a three-dimensional model.
These and other problems exist with regard to current techniques for identifying, displaying, and/or correcting defects in a three-dimensional model.